Mikko Rantanen started the year as a fan favorite and seemingly a member of the Colorado Avalanche for life, but quickly turned into quite the opposite.

With the Avalanche

The year ended up being quite tumultuous and wild for Rantanen before it even began. He entered the 2024-25 season in the final year of his contract. Reports of a new deal being close surfaced and went.

Eventually, he started the year without a new deal and only one year left on his then-current six-year, $9.25 million AAV deal. As had been the case for several years, Rantanen was the moose on the loose.

He appeared in 49 games for Colorado with 25 goals and 39 assists for 64 points. He was a dominant force on Colorado’s power play, with 19 power-play points. This included a season-opening hat-trick on the road against the Vegas Golden Knights.

Just a month later, he scored another three goals against the Los Angeles Kings, while also tacking on an assist. A month later, he scored his third hat-trick of the year on the road against the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Rantanen drove plays forward on the first line with Nathan MacKinnon, continuing to prove his worth. However, off the ice, contract negotiations weren’t going the way anyone hoped. As time continued passing, his price kept going up and up.

Was it going to be something Colorado thought was worth paying for? Already going up against the cap and with uncertainties still surrounding Gabriel Landeskog, Rantanen might’ve been the “odd man out.” But there was no way he’d end up playing elsewhere, right?

Right?

Wrong.

Colorado decided to move on and not pay Rantanen his worth. The two couldn’t come to an agreement. Hence, they tried to make up for it “in the aggregate.” However, for the Avalanche, making up for a player who averaged over a point per game in his career was much easier said than done.

With the Hurricanes

The monumental move drastically changed the landscape of the three organizations and the entire NHL. In a three-team deal, Rantanen was moving on. The Chicago Blackhawks facilitated the trade, sending the Finnish forward to the Carolina Hurricanes, along with Taylor Hall from the Blackhawks. In return, Colorado got another top forward in Martin Necas and depth in the form of Jack Drury.

His short time in Raleigh was full of twists and turns in its own right. From late January to early March, he played in just 13 games, scoring two goals and assisting on four. He did this while taking Jack Roslovic’s No. 96 at an expensive cost of a Rolex watch.

During this time, Rantanen played for Team Finland in the Four Nations Face-Off. Commercials leading up to the event still showed MacKinnon and Cale Makar talking about being teammates for Team Canada, while Rantanen jumped in about teammates turning into rivals. Still, a sour taste in the mouth for Avalanche fans. Finland struggled in the tournament, as Rantanen scored only once in three games.

Off the ice, issues persisted with the organization and Rantanen. The 28-year-old decided he never wanted to sign with Carolina in the first place, even after being traded there. Why Eric Tulsky decided to trade for him despite the player not wanting to sign a contract was befuddling.

After being scarred by the Jake Guentzel situation from a few years back, the Hurricanes decided they couldn’t hold him any longer. The team took no chances, so they traded Rantanen again.

Of course, it just happened that he got traded to the Avalanche’s biggest rivals.

With the Stars

On March 7, Carolina sent him to the Dallas Stars. In return, Carolina got a young star in the making in Logan Stankoven, a conditional first-round pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, a third-round pick in 2026, another third-round pick in 2027, and another conditional first-round pick in 2028.

As part of the deal, Dallas did its homework and made the deal thanks to Rantanen’s willingness to sign for the Stars. He would sign a large eight-year, $12 million AAV deal to keep him in Dallas almost the rest of his prime in his career.

Rantanen would play in the final 20 games for the Stars, with five goals and 13 assists. His first game as a Star came against the Edmonton Oilers, where he came out flying with a goal and an assist.

Just four games later, it was his first game back in Colorado. He notched an assist in his homecoming in the overtime loss – just a preview of what was to come.

He was seemingly a step off from where he could be in past seasons with Colorado. Averaging under a point a game and still trying to find his feet, Dallas kept on pushing. Rantanen was on track to face his former team in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, as they had lined up for months.

In the Stanley Cup Playoffs versus the Avalanche

This would be the case for Mikko Rantanen and the Stars. But he found life difficult in the postseason against his former side to start. He put up only one assist in the first four games of the series. Dallas was lucky to be tied at two after some subpar first four games, their two wins coming in OT.

However, this is when Rantanen found an extra gear Colorado couldn’t contend with.

In the final three games, Rantanen scored 12 points. He outscored every single Avalanche player throughout the entire series in those final three games alone.

In Game Five, he scored his first goal of the series along with two assists. Just in the second period alone in Game Six, he pulled the Stars back into it with four points (one goal, three assists). But in Game Seven is where he really left his mark.

The turning point

His team was down 2-0 midway through the third period on home ice. Colorado was on track to finally defeat the demons of their recent Game Seven records against one of their biggest rivals on the road.

Mikko Rantanen decided not to write the story this way.

He roared to life in the third period with a hat-trick and an assist in a four-goal third period for Dallas. Yet another Finnish player knocked out Colorado with a hat-trick, with Rantanen joining Joel Kiviranta in said feat.

He was the first in league history to score a hat-trick in the third period of a Game Seven. Rantanen also completed the feat of being the first to score multiple four-point periods in a single postseason.

Pent up with excitement and adrenaline, Rantanen had some extra juice in him to knock out his former team. It was sweet revenge for him. It left Avalanche fans and the organization in shambles, searching for answers and asking, “What if we had kept Mikko Rantanen?”

In the rest of the Stanley Cup Playoffs

In the next game in the second round against the Winnipeg Jets, Rantanen scored yet another hat-trick. He seemed invincible and unstoppable, with Dallas on track toward another run at the Stanley Cup after winning in six games over the Jets.

But against the Oilers in the Western Conference Final, Rantanen reverted to what he was in the regular season – finding his feet and being shut down. He didn’t score a goal and put up only three assists.

The Stars lost in five games in their third straight Western Conference Final appearance. But his playoff performance is not one to forget, as he ended with nine goals and 13 assists in 18 games.

Mikko Rantanen and his tumultuous season finally came to a close with some grounding and a newly solidified home in Dallas. For Avalanche fans, their first-round pick from the 2015 NHL Draft will be a pain to play against for the next eight years in the prime of his career.